Carnegie Hall

Music history isn’t a musty relic of the past at Carnegie Hall. It’s being revitalized every season as contemporary artists pay tribute to the stars who inspired them on the venue’s storied stages. That’s what Grammy winner Ledisi is doing in a solo show that honors Nina Simone, a blazing talent who delivered career-defining concerts at the Hall in the 1960s.

“They’re bringing these icons to a whole new generation,” Kathleen Sabogal, director of Carnegie Hall’s Rose Archives and Museum, says of performers like Ledisi. “Over the years, we’ve presented lots of tribute concerts focused on the music of an artist or a composer, but usually there are multiple performers,” she adds, noting that this occasion is “definitely going to be special.”

Singer-songwriter-pianist Nina Simone performed at Carnegie Hall more than a dozen times in both individual and group concerts. But her searing 1964 solo turn established Simone as a powerful voice of the Civil Rights Movement with her anguished anthem “Mississippi Goddam,” a blunt, no-holds-barred reaction to the murder of Medgar Evers, the bombing of four little girls in Alabama, and all the other racial violence plaguing the United States.

Ledisi was introduced to that song by her mother, who sang it to her kids every morning. “I thought it was something my mom wrote,” Ledisi says with a laugh. “We couldn’t stand that song because she used it to wake us up. But I didn’t understand any of Nina’s music when I was younger.”

Ledisi connected with Simone on a personal level in her 20s. “I was newly divorced and going through a lot,” she recalls. “I was exhausted and depressed and not sure how to move forward. Then Nina came on the radio doing ‘Trouble in Mind.’ It was like someone speaking my heart. It woke me out of this phase of planning my death. She gave me strength.”

Over her almost four-decade career, Ledisi has conjured Simone many times, especially recently. She cowrote and starred in the 2019 Simone bio musical The Legend of Little Girl Blue in Los Angeles, recorded the 2020 PBS TV special Ledisi Live: A Tribute to Nina Simone, and released the 2021 album Ledisi Sings Nina. Now she’s bringing her celebration of Simone to Carnegie Hall on February 23.

“Her 1964 Carnegie Hall concert was epic,” Ledisi says. “Something happened there that was different from all her other concerts.” Since Ledisi started her Simone journey, she says she’s been “dreaming” of coming to Carnegie Hall, though she does not plan to redo that milestone live performance. Instead, she wants to honor all facets of the complicated artist, advocate, and human being.

“We all know Nina as an activist. But what about the other sides that we don’t talk about?” Ledisi muses. “Nina was a woman trying to survive and feel loved in a world that didn’t want her. I don’t just see her politics. I’ll touch on that, but I want everyone to see all the parts of Nina we don’t discuss. That’s what I can’t wait to show. Doing her music helped me to become my full self. It’s changed me as an artist.”

Ledisi takes the responsibility of commemorating Simone very seriously as she brings music history to life. “It’s so important for this generation to understand that we walk on others’ shoulders,” says Ledisi. “They help lift us up.”

Photography: Ledisi by Jennifer Taylor, Simone by Alfred Wertheimer / MUUS Collection; all other artifacts courtesy of the Carnegie Hall Rose Archives.